Yoweri Museveni who has a medieval mentality of lords, knights and serfs the latter to remain un-empowered in order to labor for the lords and knights has been able to implement that ideology by adhering rigidly to the elements in structural adjustment program (SAP) that focused on economic theories of market forces and trickle down mechanism even after SAP was abandoned in 2009. Structural adjustment had three principal components that have hurt the future of Uganda youth – export of food, poor education focusing on primary education and labor flexibility. The youth can still recover its robbed future. It needs to understand how it was robbed in the first place. In this article, we shall focus on food and nutrition insecurity since 1987. As they say, life begins with breakfast.
Food and nutrition security: Until NRM government came to power in 1986, parents, governments and religious-based organizations paid attention to the value of food and nutrition security.
During the colonial administration, malnutrition largely through lack of sufficient protein intake was addressed through the development of fisheries including fish ponds to provide affordable source of protein. The government also set up nutrition facilities such as Mwanamugimu at Mulago Hospital to treat malnourished people especially children and train women in how to prepare balanced meals and serve them in a safe environment that included safe drinking water and good general hygiene such as washing hands before cooking and eating.
Religious-based organizations such as Mothers’ Union conducted home economic courses for trainers mostly spouses of church leaders. They in turn trained women in their parishes that included preparing adequate and balanced diets that included at least breakfast, lunch and dinner. Meals included carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, minerals and fats. Drinking clean water and having good sanitation such as fumigated latrines were an integral part of food and nutrition security.
During Obote’s first regime in the 1960s, the high standards of food and nutrition were maintained. Home economics and school lunches were continued and health inspectors were available at district and lower levels to ensure compliance. Notwithstanding the collapse in Uganda’s political economy under the Amin regime, parents continued to emphasize food security by reducing cash crop cultivation and focus on food production for household consumption.
Under the NRM regime, all that changed. In order to diversify Uganda exports as required under SAP, NRM encouraged production for cash rather than for the stomach. To ensure compliance, subsidies on education, healthcare, transport and kerosene were eliminated and replaced by user changes for education and healthcare and increased transport fares and kerosene prices forcing sell of food to raise income and pay for these user charges, fares and prices thereby undermining food and nutrition. The damaging changes that have taken place are difficult to detect in the short and medium term. That is why food and nutrition insecurity hasn’t attracted the attention it deserves in household and nation building. I have studied and written about the dangers of under-nutrition since my days as a student of demography specializing in what is sometimes called medical demography: pregnancies, births, deaths and malnutrition.
Undernourished women: The selling of food since 1987 to raise money for school fees, health bills and rising transport fares and kerosene prices resulted in insufficient amounts of food at household level and began the process of robbing youth of its future.
As we know in many Uganda societies women eat last and least. Their food intake has deteriorated since 1987 when diversification of exports including of foodstuffs entered into force and was rigidly implemented resulting in under-nutrition. Undernourished women produce underweight babies many of whom die in infancy.
Those that survive develop physical and mental disabilities and degenerative diseases of diabetes, stroke and heart problems. Those born underweight therefore have their future robbed by a policy of selling food that results in infant death or are disabled to study and acquire skills to earn them decent income and long life span. Many children in Uganda are born underweight induced by a policy of growing food for cash and not for the stomach. Museveni stressed this policy of food for cash in speeches at home and abroad including at the United Nations General Assembly.
Formation of brain size: There is scientific evidence that brain develops during the first two or three years of human life. And nutrition plays a crucial role in brain size development. Those infants and children who eat well develop large brain size and those who don’t develop smaller brain size. The smaller the brain size, the less difficult it is to learn and acquire skills for productive adult life. Although there are no statistics on brain size development that the author is aware of, it is fair to assume that the drastic decline in household food consumption at household level has drastically affected formation of brain to normal size.
Studies in the 1990s recorded that in Rukungiri district for example many households were selling food with insufficient amount retained for children consumption. Studies have also shown that student performance in former Kigezi district has declined precipitously and it is believed that reduced and unbalanced food intake has contributed disproportionately. Preference for earning foreign exchange by exporting foodstuff traditionally grown for household consumption such as fish and beans has robbed Uganda youth of its future.
Absence of school lunch: It is recognized globally that school lunches improve school attendance and performance especially of girls. That is why school lunches are provided in developed and developing country schools. NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) an organ of African Union adopted a resolution calling on African governments to launch school lunch programs using locally produced foodstuffs to put money into the pockets of farmers instead of imported food. Many African governments have responded and school lunches are being provided with positive results. However, in Uganda, it is reported that the president has personally rejected the idea of school lunch supported by government and even by teachers and parents making their own arrangements.
During the 2011 presidential campaign, Besigye supported school lunches and gained some support which put pressure on Museveni to say something. He reported that he had asked the World Bank to undertake a study and advise whether or not school lunch program was a good idea for Uganda children. In my view this was unnecessary because Uganda had been among the NEPAD countries that adopted a resolution that governments should support school lunches. It would also be difficult to understand how the World Bank would recommend that school lunches are not good for Uganda children when it hasn’t complained about other governments that are supporting school lunches possibly using funds from the World Bank. Be that as it may, I don’t know what the World Bank recommended but recently there was official announcement that parents must provide school lunches to their children. This decision whether or not based on World Bank recommendation misses the point entirely.
The purpose of government supporting and funding school lunch supported by relevant organs of the United Nations and non-governmental organizations is because parents can’t afford to do so. In Uganda where food producers are urged or forced through user charges to sell food, there is no surplus for school lunches. Households that eat one meal a day or in two days can’t afford school lunches for their children. If this is what the World Bank recommended then it needs to revisit the recommendation because many parents will not be able to comply, meaning that children will continue to drop out of school. The government has also decided that parents that fail to send children to school or provide school lunch will be arrested. You can be sure that many will because they simply can’t afford. This is a deliberate government plan possibly dictated by the president to rob Uganda youth of its future in line with creation of a Uganda society of lords, knights and serfs. Those that have no education will serve as serfs and Museveni is probably comfortable with that.
Add on functional illiteracy and youth unemployment and you get a full story: When you add on functional illiteracy and youth unemployment now above 80 percent and under-employment (disguised unemployment), you can’t fail to see how Uganda youth has been robbed of its future. A future of underweight children that develop smaller brain size than normal; undernourished children that drop out of school at an early age in part for lack of school lunch and have children they can’t afford and those that graduate without skills to earn them remunerative jobs is a bleak future indeed not only for the individuals concerned but the nation generally. That is why in human condition terms, Uganda which was ahead of Kenya and Tanzania is now way behind. This development should worry Ugandans concerned about a bright future for their children and nation.
Here is some advice: As a concerned citizen – although some detractors see what I do in terms of personal gain – let me offer some advice. You should always remember that nothing comes on a silver platter. You have to earn your place under the sun. And this means hard and smart work. It means sacrifice in the early stages of your life. When you settle into routines and accept that your place on earth was predetermined by our Creator and there nothing you can do about it, you are going to have a hard time on earth and possibly be rejected in heaven.
Yoweri Museveni who believes in medieval political, economic and social system of lords, knights and serfs with Tutsi as lords and knights and the rest of Ugandans as serfs laboring for lords and knights isn’t going to create conditions for youth improvement. The fact that Museveni is recording hair salons, boda boda and video houses where the youth is trapped in poverty as Uganda’s success stories implies that he has no plans to develop agriculture and industries that create demand for skilled labor and good incomes.
Last June during the State of the Nation address, Museveni stressed concentration on agriculture. One would have expected a report on progress in his New Year message. There was none. He has always stressed the importance of manufacturing industries in terms of job creation and value addition but implementation has remained problematic and Uganda is actually de-industrializing and shedding instead of creating jobs.
If NRM government doesn’t change policy on development of Uganda youth and I don’t see it happening, the youth of Uganda has a right to cause changes to happen and install a government that will take care of its interests. This should be done by peaceful means through demonstrations, strikes and non-cooperation with the government.
If government responds by brute force, then other means must be invoked in self-defense. I have made it very clear and let me repeat it: I believe very strongly in peaceful and democratic methods of resolving differences but it takes two to tangle. If one side doesn’t believe in peaceful settlement of differences, then appropriate adjustments must be made by the other side. Wake up the youth of Uganda because the future is rapidly slipping out of your hands. You can turn the situation around. UDU with a spokesperson on youth affairs will back you up.